


Pray Tell

by slash4femme



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock tries to adjust to being a man out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pray Tell

**Author's Note:**

> You thought I was dead but in fact like the monster from a B-rated monster movie I never really die. This could be read as a stand alone but also goes with my other Spock Prime/McCoy stories. Not beta'd sorry everyone.

When he wakes that morning there is a transmission form Doctor McCoy.

_I am sorry I took so long to write back to you._

The doctor writes and Spock knows it’s bad because usually the doctor talks to him through video feed but this time there are only words scrolling across the screen.

_We were held up on Vera XII. It was a bad situation. I don’t know how much I am allowed to tell you about it, so I’ll just say Jim was forced to make a decision I hope to God I never have to make.  
I am safe though given the circumstances. I just wanted to write to tell you that. Couldn’t have you worrying over me._

_I’ll talk to you via video feed when I can._

_I miss you.  
Leonard_

Spock sips his tea and thinks he might need to meditate before writing the doctor back. He does not remember Vera XII so this must be a situation that the crew of his timeline never had to face. He can hear the pain behind the doctors words, can almost feel the exhaustion and the strain. He turns away from the screen and moves into the bedroom to begin to pack.

He doesn’t not let himself feel maybe as much as he could when the doctor is away, relying on his Vulcan control more than he has since he was very much younger. The doctor is right after all, this is no logic in worrying when there is nothing realistically he can do.

There are some things he needs to do here and now though. All of them preparation for his journey back to Earth which he will embark on tomorrow as one of New Vulcan’s representative to the Federation Council. There are things he must speak with the Federation Council about and perhaps even the President regarding New Vulcan’s defense. As well as the possibility of the genetic manipulation ban being lifted, a necessary measure if Vulcans as a species where to served more than a generation or so. The buzzer to his front door rings. Spock goes to answer it, knowing it will be T’Pril come to help with her part of the preparations for his trip.

T’Pril is young with dark hair cut smartly around her ears. She is a brilliant geneticist and one of the few surviving Vulcan females of her generation. Spock considers it an honor to have worked with her since their arrival on New Vulcan. She has agreed to look after the cat Daniel for him and water his plants while he is gone. He shows her all the things she will need to do this and while Daniel skitter about the living room on legs that are still a little too long for his half-grown body. His grey looks dappled in the sunlight has he chases after a brown and curling leaf which has fallen off one of the plants Spock has in pots so he can bring them into the house during sand storms. The small cat hides under the couch when he sees T’Pril, watching her out of large suspicious green eyes.

“He will most likely not approach you.” Spock explains to her, “just leave the food bowl on the floor in the kitchen and he will eat when he is hungry.”

She nods attentively and Spock shows her the access code to the replicator in the kitchen. Once she leaves he finishes packing his bags and sends several letters and data compilations to New Vulcan hospital and then another round of correspondence to the New Vulcan Science Academy.

He drinks a tall glass of juice because the doctor had fussed at him last time they had spoken about him remaining properly hydrated. He also meditates for a few hours. Even then though he finds he cannot think of a response to write Doctor McCoy. He sighs and straightens up moving into the kitchen to feed Daniel. He has never doubted his ability to negotiate well and convincingly, always known what to say to convince even the most stubborn members of the Federation Council to see his point of view. He has nothing to say to the doctor though, no words of comfort or condolence. He finds he cannot express how sorry he is that the too young man with his quiet presence and gentle eyes should have to watch others suffer while standing helplessly by. Likewise he knows he will never be able to express how afraid he is, afraid that one day he will open his computer to find a short, crisply worded letter from Starfleet telling him the doctor will be coming back. This fear is illogical in the extreme and Spock knows that but it is there nonetheless. Spock is beginning to think he may need to start meditating a lot more then he currently is.

The commanding officers of the starship that comes to pick him up and escort him to Earth the next morning all seem almost impossibly young including the captain. They are all very polite though, some of them treating him with a carefulness the boarders on pity. Spock does not let this bother him, both because doing so would not change anything. Also because he has come to learn over the years since the destruction of Vulcan to almost expect this reaction from non-Vulcans upon meeting on of the new surviving members of his species.

After the heat of New Vulcan the starship seems almost unbearably cold and Spock is grateful for the many layers of heavy black cloth that makes up his suit and outer robe. Someone has thoughtfully adjusted the temperature of his quarters up to a more comfortable level though he finds when he gets there. It is a kind gesture and he reminds himself to mention it to the Captain when they next meet.

The trip is smooth and uneventful, Spock spends most of his time meditating in his quarters and preparing himself for the long weeks possibly months of debating and political negotiating ahead of him.

The Vulcan Council has not required that he take one of the remaining Vulcan females as a mate yet but Spock knows it is only a matter of the. When he had lived in his own time on the Vulcan that still is he had indeed taken a mate out of duty, a brilliant scientist and dutiful daughter of Vulcan, T’Prel had been the logical match and he had bowed to that logic. On the Vulcan that still is though he had no one else with which he would have rather spent his remaining years. This timeline is different and he is not certain of what he will do once the Vulcan Council offers him a mate. He is not certain he should do anything, it will very much depend after all one what Doctor McCoy wants and he is not at all sure what the other man will want.

His quarters at the Vulcan Embassy in San Francisco are satisfactory in a very functional kind of way. He does notice that they give him a room that looks out over a large expanse of garden they share with several other Starfleet buildings. It makes him think of his own garden on New Vulcan, once again he realizes someone has, unexpectedly, gone out of their way to be kind.

He unpacks his bags taking out and putting on the table next to the bed the only nonessential item he has brought with him, a paper copy of a collection of writings by the ancient Earth mystic Hafiz. Doctor McCoy had given it to him last time they had been together, knowing Spock’s interest in both antique paper books and Earth religions.

He has a few hours before he has to have dinner with some Federation officials and Starfleet higher-ups so he curls himself into one of the chairs wishing it was more comfortable and less practical for a moment and then turns to his book. The writing is beautiful, lyrical and brilliant filled with a passion and emotion it has taken him a lifetime to come to appreciate. These words might have been written many thousands of years earlier but their beauty is nonetheless breathtaking. He rises only once to open the window and lets a warm breeze in from the garden and the smell of grass. By the time he rises to take a quick sonic shower and change for dinner he is much calmer then he has been in weeks.

He sits through the dinner and the never ending stream of meaningless talk he’s found many powerful humans so love to indulge in. He lets his mind drift calmly between their words, taking it all in but not really paying the details much mind. The talk tonight is mostly about Cardassia and whether the Cardassians would make good allies to the Federation. Spock holds his tongue, as McCoy would say, and keeps his own council on the subject.

His thoughts stray to McCoy, the serious young man he is slowly coming to know. He thinks of McCoy bending over some work in his lab, all intense concentration fixed on the sample trays and computer read outs. He thinks about McCoy sitting in Spock’s living room on New Vulcan a PADD in one hand and Daniel curled in his lap. There is a peace now when Spock thinks of the young man that over lays Spock’s ever present anxiety and for this Spock is grateful.

When the dinner ends he makes his polite goodbyes and retreats to his rooms in the Vulcan embassy. He pulls up a blank message screen on his computer and for a moment allows his eyes to close as he reaches for that peace.  
 _I have not been informed of the details of what happened on Vera XII._

Spock writes.

_It seems this is an event unique to this timeline show I cannot draw upon the experiences of my own life. However over the almost two years that I have known you, Captain Kirk and the other members of the Enterprise crew I am confident that the Captain and all of you made the only decision available at the time.  
I will not tell you that, as you humans say, everything will be alright. I will not insult your intelligence by telling you that time will heal the pain you and the others are feeling. I will tell you that you have been in my thoughts to an almost illogical degree and will continue to be so. _

His fingers hover over the keys as he struggles within himself.

_Return safely._

He rights almost a plea and then sends the message before has the urge to change it. He pushes himself up feeling very tired all of a sudden. He makes his way out into the garden, watches the darkness start to creep into the sky. The garden smells of freshly cut grass, and the large heavy flowers that are in full bloom. Spock tucks his hands into the sleeves of his outer robes and walks slowly along the little gravel paths between the flowers. The garden is quiet with only the faint hum of insects and below that the clamor of Starfleet from just outside of the garden walls, and beyond that the noise of the city.

In some ways being here in this time and place makes him feel very old and very tired. Watching history repeat itself was nothing he had ever wished for and in some ways that is not what this is. There are too many shadows of the past, or more accurately the future, for him to totally convince himself of that. In other ways he feels very young all of a sudden, unsure of his place or his role in the Federation, on New Vulcan and in the universe in general. There are emotions he doesn’t want to name and might not want to feel, too close to the surface and it makes him feel strange, stretched and exposed in a way he has not felt for a long, long time.

Until now Spock has only been in love once, and he had always known there would be no happy ending in a human sense for that particular chapter of his life. There had been a comfortableness though, a familiarity and deep intense affection. There had been a rightness and an order to that in the end it had made him very happy.  
Now he must do it all over again. The thought leaves him raw inside and terribly hopeful for what this might be between him and the young doctor. Of all the emotions Spock has struggled with his entire life it is at moments like this that he thinks he hates hope the most. The sun sets, the air growing cool with only a faint heat rising from the earth. Spock turns away from the garden and heads back to his quarters to prepare for the next day’s meetings.

He doesn’t know if they are doing the right thing, him and McCoy. He doesn’t know what the other man wants from this or what he himself wants for that matter. He doesn’t know how this will end or what will happen between them.

He checks his computer but there is no response yet from the doctor. So he waits.


End file.
